Looking at the cover art for Chad Archibald’s The Drownsman, I can’t help but recall the scene in A Nightmare On Elm Street where Nancy is taking a bath, and is dragged underwater by Freddy. In fact, the cover art and the back of the case for The Drownsman make it a point to tickle your retro glands by name-dropping Freddy and 80s slashers in general to grab your interest. Of course, you never want to go by how cool the cover looks to gauge how good the film actually is, nor do you want to rely on pullquotes. Because invariably, you’ll find out that it’s the classic “sell the sizzle instead of the steak” situation, leaving the film all wet.

After a near-drowning in a lake, and what she experienced while underwater, Madison (Michelle Mylett) has developed hydrophobia, or a fear of water. Crippled by the fear, she misses her best friend Hanna’s (Caroline Korycki) wedding, where Madison was to be the maid of honour. Madison’s friends enlist the help of a psychic medium (Clare Bastable) to try and help Madison face her fear. Unfortunately for the group, the intervention only unleashes what was initially only fixated on Madison — The Drownsman. Now The Drownsman is after Madison’s friends, able to appear in any body of water and pull them into his lair to be drowned. Madison must now find a way to stop The Drownsman before he takes them all.

I have to say, that while the concept of the film is derivative (Wes Craven, anyone?), I do find the idea of a killer potentially popping out of any body of water pretty intriguing. It opens up so much potential for what you can do, and it’s clear that director Chad Archibald (who also co-wrote the story) is a fan of 80s horror. There’s a focus on the psychological horror rather than gore. Having something so innocuous as a glass of water as a potential portal for The Drownsman to reach through is a definite plus. Add in some nice camerawork with good use of shadows, and it’s an impressive-looking film.

Of course, the main draw is The Drownsman himself. Working within budget and mood, we never really get a good look at The Drownsman until much later. Keeping the creep in the shadows and low-lit scenes also heightens the effectiveness of the makeup, which is honestly pretty cool on its own. To complement The Drownsman, his lair is also quite the mood maintainer. Sure it looks like your typical sunken ship, but the set is appropriately creepy. With his appearance, presence and all of this potential, do we actually find out how he came to be, and his motivations beyond just being a psychopathic killer?

Disappointingly no, which is what can be said of a lot of The Drownsman. Seems that in crafting the story for the film, Archibald forgot to give attention to the substance. For starters, the film’s characters are flat and underdeveloped. While Mylett does a great job of portraying Madison, she’s not given a lot to work with, leaving the character practically interchangeable with the other girls, who are just as undeveloped. Frustrating is the idea that Hanna (who was just married the day before) ignores giving attention to her husband, and instead devotes her time to Madison. Plus, why would you hire a psychic for someone with what appears to be a psychological problem? The Drownsman character amounts to nothing more than a few grunts. We don’t find out how he came to be this supernatural force, we just get a silent, one-note killer. Sure that works in other films, but those films at least put the time into establishing and building up the antagonist in some form. Hell, Freddy is given his motivations and a bit of his background, which counterbalances the fact that we never find out why he has his power. That made the character scary. The Drownsman character isn’t afforded that luxury, especially given the film’s 86 minute runtime. Add in the fact that the story unfolds over a couple of days rather than a single day or night makes these issues stick out even more.

The Drownsman could have most definitely been a nice throwback to 80s horror with some great potential in a water-borne killer, but instead falls flat thanks to an equally-flat and undeveloped script. Stylistically impressive, the film lacks the innards that would have made it memorable and a blast to watch. Instead, we’re given characters for which we couldn’t about, a villain that lacks staying power, and a story that compounds those problems even more. Watch it out of curiosity, but you’ll be wanting to go back to A Nightmare On Elm Street right afterwards to see how a film like this should be done.

Video/Audio:

Presented in AVC-encoded 1080p 2.39:1 widescreen, the video sports some great detail, courtesy of the RED Epic camera. Skin details are always clear, as are the makeup effects for the killer. Colours are well-defined and consistent, even in lower-lit scenes. Black levels are also strong, although there was some slight banding in spots, and the picture noise does creep up near the end of the film. Overall, the image is very good, and typically what you’d expect from a RED camera.

Audio-wise, the Dolby TrueHD 5.1 lossless track is also strong, except for one glaring problem. While the ambient effects such as water drips take full advantage of the surrounds and the subwoofer gets in some good punches, the overall mix is weird. The score isn’t given as much a priority as it should, and the dialogue is placed way too high in the mix, resulting in clipping during certain moments. It’s a nice compliment to the video, but the mix definitely needed to be tweaked.